http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Africa , South Africa , Western Cape en-us Sat, 26 Jul 2008 21:02:37 BST Sat, 26 Jul 2008 21:02:37 BST July 21 24 2008Cape Town Wine DistrictWe spent Monday with a quiet day in Cape Town and the usual ldquoHop On Hop Offrdquo city bus tour. Today was a rather cold and cloudy day and sightseeing was not great but we did get a good overview of this beautiful city. Cape Town reminds us of Vancouver Canada as it has the mountains the sea and a great downtown on the waterfront. Winter i http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-Town/blog-304096.html July 19 20 2008Garden Route South Africaldquo The Garden Route ldquo is a favorite travel route in South Africa that basically follows the coast starting east of Cape Town at Mussel Bay and ending at Tsitsikamma National Park east of Plettenberg Bay. This is a beautiful part of the country and there are great camping hotel and lodge facilities along the route. The countryside is mostly http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Mossel-Bay/blog-304093.html July 18 2008PLETTENBERG BAY S.A.Our adventures in South Africa continued today with a drive from Oudtshoorn to Plettenberg bay on the Indian Ocean coast of southern South Africa. This was an easy day on the road passing from the Ostrich farms and sheep and goats Mohair Goats farms through the mountains and back to the coast on a beautiful road through the mountain passes. We enjoyed some in http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Plettenberg-Bay/blog-304092.html Walking the otter trailhellip.I recently had the amazing privilege to walk the famous otter trail. I say privilege because if you want to walk it you have to book almost 2 years in advance to get space on your preferred date. I was asked by a friend last minute 3 months before to fill a spacehellipPart of the excitement is preparing and we talked a lot about what to pack did some research http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Nature--s-Valley/blog-303687.html Molweni NinjaniToday is chilly and foggy but I went for a run this morning anyway. It's very funny that to me a short run used to be fifteen minutes but now a short run is thirty minutes. Ah well I'm a true runner now.Two days ago one of my comrades from my group Jessica and I took my IT partner Xolile who I taught how to use a computer to a nice restaurant at the Waterfront mall in http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-Town/blog-303094.html We left Cape Town and headed for Kell's Grans beach house at Cape Agulhas. The Southern Most Tip of Africa. Its an awesome place overlooking the ocean. Would be unreal for summer holidays. Unfortunately we were only there for the night because we had to get on the road to Mossel Bay where we would meet up with Kells other Gran who would take over the baby sitting duties. Granny Yda took over the d http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/blog-302796.html This is probably the most spontaneous thing that we've done on our trip so far. We had initially planned a few days in the Hermanus region for whale watching and never even considered diving with the sharks. When we met a really nice couple at the backpacker's lodge in Oudtshoorn they had just come from Gansbaai and they couldn't stop talking about it. We immediately went online and booked acc http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Gansbaai/blog-302619.html On our first full day in Cape Town we visited this old Dutch Castle. It's the oldest monument of European settlement in South Africa. It was pretty interesting but i think the most interesting part of the day was walking from the car to the castle down the city streets of Cape Town. People mainly blacks and coloureds hang around in the street doing nothing. Looking hell sketchyWhen we got there http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-Town/blog-302312.html I've managed to make it through one week in Cape Town and the one thing I've noticed is that there are very McDonald's around. There are McDonald's here but not one at every corner like in the US and not one with a 24 hour drive thru like the one at Albion. They have the Mega Mac or the Double Big Mac here but it still has fewer calories than the Monster Thickburger from Hardee's that a group o http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-Town/blog-302199.html MolweniThe academic part of my experience here is over and I do miss it sometimes although I am really enjoying not having any papers to write papers to read or maps to draw. Our written exam this past Tuesday after our oral presentations Monday was such a wonderful experience for me. I wrote for three hours about my experiences here both about our field workservicelearning and applica http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-Town/blog-302173.html Hi there folks. well I am off again on Monday and so you will once again be bombarded by my ramblings and hopefully fun adventures. this time its Bali and if Eve can help me you might even get a few photos. http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-Town/blog-301732.html We woke up super early from our base in Kleinbaii and drove to Betty's Bay to see the penguin colony. We enjoyed the ones in Cape Town so much that we just had to see more. Here was a much different experience as we literally had the place to ourselves.After a windy morning visiting the penguins we headed to Hermanus for lunch and spent the afternoon watching the Southern Right Whales from the s http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Hermanus/blog-301432.html We finally made it to the southern tip of Africa Pretty much just a photo op here but it was interesting meeting a couple of guys that were just beginning a transafrican journey on motorbikes ala Ewan McGreggor and his buddy in the Long Way Down. http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/blog-301430.html We heard reports of poor weather for the coast so we decided to head inland away from the Garden Route and take the alternative Route 62 from Oudtshoorn to Robertson. Oudtshoorn is the Ostrich capital of the world and is also the gateway to the Cango Caves. The caves were cool and the Ostrich was delicious. In Robertson we treated ourselves to a winetasting tour where we visited four wineries http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Oudtshoorn/blog-301420.html July 16 17 2008CAPE TOWN OUDTSHOORN S.A.Wednesday morning we began our exploring of the Cape area of South Africa. We met our guide Carles and drove today north and east to Oudtshoorn. This is a very nice drive through some beautiful mountains to an area of farms and past many small vineyards and fruit growing areas.The landscape changes to semidesert very similar to Arizona and a http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Oudtshoorn/blog-301083.html July 13 14 15 2008Tanzania to Cape Town.Sunday morning we left our camp early to catch our small planes to Arusha Kilimanjaro with some great views of snow covered Mount Kilimanjaro and on to Nairobi Kenya. We enjoyed a farewell dinner courtesy of Kensington Tours our hosts for this part of our trip at the famous Carnivore Restaurant in Nairobi. This is a MEAT place with some of the http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-Town/blog-301081.html I just stumbled across these videos of this bridge in Knysna. We were walking somewhere near the left head and came across a small beachand obviously this bridge was put there for fishermen to go across to the rocks.Dave went across first then had a great laugh filming me crossing it. Keep in mind this was BEFORE I jumped off a 216 m high bridge and this thing looked precarious at best.Just http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Knysna/blog-301034.html Welcome family friends peers internet stalkers and the casual Googler This is the first installment of my travelblog I created to help keep in touch with people while I am abroad for the semester in Cape Town South Africa. I'm not really the blogging type so we'll see how long I keep this updated before I become bored with it or forget about it.I landed in Cape Town at 930 pm on Sunday Jul http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-Town/blog-300550.html I arrived in Cape Town late Friday evening expecting a ride into town arranged by the tour company but this never happened. I don't know why so I had to take a taxi to my hotel. The taxi driver talked the entire time and told me in detail the history of South Africa. The flight from Amsterdam took longer than the flight from Vancouver to Amsterdam. Africa is a big continent. We flew over A http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-Town/blog-299948.html I simply want to let you all know that I have added more pictures to the gallery. EnjoyCharis http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-Town/blog-299743.html MolweniHow is everyone I'm doing superTwo days ago a group of us hiked Table Mountain. One of the members from my study abroad group had to leave the programme early for a family function and his last wish before leaving was to hike the mountain. We spent two hours hiking up a nice trail to the top. It was an absolutely gorgeous day at one point I actually got warm enough to be in my short http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-Town/blog-299707.html My last trip as cabin crew was a favourite of mine We had very little time but still managed to see some amazing things We went on a tour to Cape Point the most Southernly part of Sout Africa and on the way we went on a little boat ride to a little island called Seal Island. The rock island is covered in hundreds of Seals It was amazing to see On the way to Cape Point we passed throug http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-of-Good-Hope/blog-299194.html I got back from my short trip to Cape Town last week and had a great time when I was there. Cape Town still recovering from the dark days of apartheid is totally separated culturally racially and economically which became apparent to me only when I took a guided tour of the townships. The townships were set up to house the nonwhites during the Apartheid seperatism and are basically spraw http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Hout-Bay/blog-299174.html We arrived in the pouring rain and had to get a bus from the tarmac to the customs building.Kell got to enter on her South African passport which meant she was in a seperate line about 10 people long. I had to line up in the Foreign passport line behind about 200 people. Took me 40min to get through.Got our bags and headed for the car. Unfortunately the cover from rain was pretty poor and there di http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-Town/blog-298841.html